COVER -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR -- FOREWORD -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER I Jokes, fathers, grief, and angels: a poem by Sherman Alexie -- CHAPTER II Speaking of pain: Yehuda Amichai -- CHAPTER III A sad story, briefly told: a poem by Simon Armitage -- CHAPTER IV "Finding in the sound a thought": Matthew Arnold's "Dover beach" -- CHAPTER V Auden's "Lullaby" and Winnnicott's "Hate …" -- CHAPTER VI An awakening: a poem by Elizabeth Bishop -- CHAPTER VII On the pleasure in play: the poetry of Billy Collins -- CHAPTER VIII Tyger time: e. e. cummings on conscientious objection -- CHAPTER IX On idea and image and "the space between": a poem by Albert Goldbarth -- CHAPTER X "When your heart cries out, being carried off …": a poem by Eamon Grennan -- CHAPTER XI "Old pond, frog jump in …": the genius of haiku -- CHAPTER XII Postmodern metaphor: a poem by Robert Hass -- CHAPTER XIII The air of another time and place: a poem by Seamus Heaney -- CHAPTER XIV Poetry as argument: a poem by Tony Hoagland -- CHAPTER XV Marie Howe on "What the living do" -- CHAPTER XVI Kenneth Koch on psychoanalysis in the "glory days" -- CHAPTER XVII An old man's love song: a poem by Stanley Kunitz -- CHAPTER XVIII "They fuck you up …" Philip Larkin's "This be the verse" -- CHAPTER XIX The art of the ordinary: Philip Levine on "What work is" -- CHAPTER XX How otherness dissolves: a poem by Thomas Lux -- CHAPTER XXI Mysterious tears: a poem by Rose McLarney -- CHAPTER XXII A meditation without punctuation by W. S. Merwin -- CHAPTER XXIII Narrative as metaphor: Sharon Olds -- CHAPTER XXIV "The meaning of simplicity": a poem by Yannis Ritsos -- CHAPTER XXV Saying a lot with a little: the poetry of Kay Ryan -- CHAPTER XXVI On the love of beauty-and a poem by Charles Simic -- CHAPTER XXVII When the narrative changes: a poem by A. E. Stallings.

CHAPTER XXVIII Metaphors for mind: the poet Gerald Stern -- CHAPTER XXIX Negative capability and Wallace Stevens's "The emperor of ice-cream" -- CHAPTER XXX Tracks in the snow: a poem of the Sung dynasty -- CHAPTER XXXI On style: Tennyson and Cavafy, and intersubjective engagement -- CHAPTER XXXII Empathic music: a poem of William Carlos Williams -- CHAPTER XXXIII The pathetic fallacy: William Carlos Williams and Emily Dickinson -- CHAPTER XXXIV W. B. Yeats on "Where love has pitched his mansion …".